Family Forum / Parenting / Spanking / June 2004

I find an odd claim, given that you insist you have one...the same as
I have.

Now there you are with one of the seminal pieces of research, a report
that examines one of the classic methods of non-cp intervention to
teach toddlers not to go into the street, but not only have going
through what must be easy for you, with all your practice, but painful
for honest people, avoidance contortions, you appear to be deny it's
existance.

Why is that Droaner? Something in it you don't want to share? I've
sent my copy of the report to about 8 people now, a few who must be
sitting there quietly chuckling over your continuing nonsense.

If you are to be believed, given our exhange, you have what you claim
doesn't exist. And you are hidding it.

Kind of dumb, eh?

And tell us about the small sample again will yah, but avoid at all
costs, the body of the work that nullifies any sample size problem.

We love to watch you expert at lying at work.

Your recent, "so's yer ol' man" nonsense from the gradeschool
playground is equally entertaining.

So Doan. Every one that wanted one has the study from me. Who have YOU
given to, except ..............R R R R R R......what was her name
again, from Mexico? Oh, I could get it if I could remember that name
of that nun you have to know from the USC campus.

R R R R

Yer a phony, Droany.

Kane

If spanking is so evil as

I have, Doan.  I have provided reference after reference.  You can
repeat the same challenge over and over again, but that doesn't change
reality.  And no, I am not going to spend the next six to eight hours
recreating the reference list.

When studies show toddlers who experience CP to be less compliant than
toddlers who experience minimal to no CP, this would say to any rational
person that non-cp alternatives are preferable.

When studies reveal increasing levels of CP to correlate positively with
increasing levels of antisocial behavior, rational thought would allow
one to conclude that non-cp alternatives are preferable.

When studies of individuals involved in the juvenile justice system
reveal strong correlation between cp and juvenile crime, logic would
allow one to conclude that non-cp guidance and discipline is better.

You want the references again.  Go get them.

LaVonne

a123sdg321

Still stupid as usually.  The article said the research will be presented
LATER!  Do you have a problem with English again? ;-)

What does this have to do with research?

And your proof is?

And we are now in IRAG! ;-)

LOL!  I see that juvenile halls are emptying.

Men, you are stupid!  Here is what this website said:

We are frequently asked if the outcomes and  benefits of Parent
Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) have been proven by research. There
are two important facts people should know about research on P.E.T.:

1) Gordon Training International is a  training (not a research)
organization. Its courses, however, have been evaluated by many
independent studies.

2) Many of these studies were Master's theses  or Ph.D. dissertations.
Nevertheless, not all of them met the essential criteria for rigorously
designed studies even though university faculty members obviously approved them.

They said nothing of the sort.  You are showing your dishonesty and
stupitiy again. :-)

Show me that they exist!

Tell me what Swedish parents use instead of spanking! ;-)

You are welcome to use what work for you.  The problem is when you
start trying to tell other parents how to parent THEIR kids.  Remember,
you are the one that said parents should not be making up their own
mind without your approval. ;-)

Read Straus & Mouradian (1998), STUPID! ;-)

Doan

Back in 1997, I read the Parent Effectiveness Training book and posted my
own critique of it on these newsgroups.  The edition I read is not the
latest, so it is possible that some of the weaknesses I identified have
since been corrected.  And the page numbers almost certainly won't match up
with those in newer versions.  Still, I'll repost my comments in case there
are people who would find them useful.

I'm actually not surprised at the idea that reading the book or attending
P.E.T. seminars could tend to make people better parents on average.
Indeed, I've thought about buying the book for some relatives who have
children.  There are a number of things about the author's philosophy and
reasoning (at least as represented in the edition I read) that I find
logically unsound or that I disagree with for philosophical reasons, but the
tools the book provides could be very useful.

On the other hand, to the extent that P.E.T. works, does it work because of
its radical emphasis on never resorting to authority and the threat of
punishment, or does it work in spite of taking those concepts to greater
extremes than would be optimal?  (And is it even possible that the reason it
works as well as it does is that parents who attend the seminars or read the
books are generally willing to make exceptions and assert their authority
when they feel a genuine need to?)

I originally posted this in three messages, but since this is a repost, I'm
combining it into a single message.

---
For some time now, LaVonne Carlson and probably a few others have
beenrecommending the book _Parent_Effectiveness_Training_ (hereafter
referred toas P.E.T.) by Dr. Thomas Gordon.  I checked it out from the
library a coupledays ago and read it, and I want to share some of my
thoughts. I think the book offers some truly EXCELLENT tools and thoughts on
usingthem, and I think it's well worth reading for that alone no matter how
muchparents might disagree with the author's philosophy.  It is most
certainlypossible to learn from P.E.T. without adopting it wholeheartedly.
But I don't care much for the philosophical basis the book is built on.
Perhaps the most telling example of Dr. Gordon's philosophy at work is
thathe views a child's not doing his homework as a problem "owned"
exclusivelyby the child, a problem the child's parents have no real personal
stake in. While Dr. Gordon is correct in one sense, he is dead wrong in
anotherbecause parents' love for their children gives them a very
significant stakein anything that will have a major impact on their
children's futures.  Thisis perhaps the most extreme example in a
significantly larger set ofproblems that Dr. Gordon tries to "resolve" by
simply defining them as notreally enough of the parents' business for the
parents to do much more thanjust let the child know how they feel and give
advice. At a deeper level, Dr. Gordon rightly recognizes that parents don't
ALWAYSknow best and would be stupid to act like they do, but he overreacts
in theopposite direction of becoming so afraid of the abuse of power that
hedenies virtually all possibility that it could be used wisely.  Perhaps
thisview is the natural result of a professional career where families
tornapart by misuse and abuse of parental authority were FAR more likely to
needprofessional help than those where it was used more wisely and
reasonably. Still, as I said earlier, you don't have to embrace everything
in P.E.T. tolearn a *LOT* from the tools it offers.  Indeed, several of the
tools arethings I've already been using to a significant degree, although
the bookstill gave me some useful new thoughts on them.  If you don't like
Dr.Gordon's philosophy, I would still recommend that you read the book
andthink about how you could incorporate the tools it offers into your
ownphilosophy. One last thought on reading the book: keep in mind that Dr.
Gordon was ableto pick and choose any examples he wanted to.  He could pick
examples thatshow how successful his tools CAN be and ignore other
situations where thetools' success was questionable at best.  I am fully
convinced that thetools presented in the book are valuable, but don't expect
them always towork nearly as well in the real world as they do in the book.
I guess this about wraps up my introduction.  I'll address specific
pointswhere I think the book is a bit off target in later messages so maybe
no onemessage will be quite as long. ------ Note: This critique focuses on
points where I disagree with Dr. Gordon. Keep in mind that in spite of these
disagreements, I think the book presentssome useful tools and is well worth
reading for its value in that regard. Page numbers in this critique are from
a hardback version, copyright 1970;this particular copy is fifteenth
printing from October, 1973.  I won'tguarantee that there couldn't be other
editions or something where the pagenumbers wouldn't match up. pp. 21-22.
Dr. Gordon strongly criticizes the idea of parents' putting up a"united
front" as being dishonest about their emotions.  While this iscertainly true
when parents try to pretend that they FEEL the same way, Iwould contend that
it is very often quite possible for parents to expressdifferent feelings and
still back each other up. Dr. Gordon gives two specific examples: a
16-year-old-girl whose motherisn't satisfied about how clean she keeps her
room but whose father thinksit's okay, and a six-year-old boy whose father
doesn't like the noise he'smaking but whose mother is just happy he's
playing by himself instead ofbothering her.  In such situations, I agree
with Dr. Gordon that it would bedishonest for a parent who doesn't mind
something to pretend it reallybothers him, but Dr. Gordon seems to
completely miss the possibility thatthe parent who doesn't mind could still
back the other parent up byexplaining that he personally doesn't really mind
but that the problem isimportant to him for the other parent's sake.  This
often, though notalways, provides a way to present a united front in what
the parentswant/expect from a child without being dishonest even when they
are notfully united in their emotions. pp. 25-27.  Dr. Gordon insists that
it is impossible to be accepting towarda child but not toward the child's
behavior.  I think Dr. Gordon has a goodpoint, but I also think he takes it
WAY too far.  Certainly, parents can'tbe accepting toward the ENTIRE child
when they are rejecting the child'sbehavior, but there is still a world of
difference between making it clearthat it is only one tiny piece of the
child that the parents are rejecting -the transient misbehavior - and making
the child feel like his parents arerejecting him entirely. [At this point,
there is a stretch of almost 150 pages where I was a lotmore interested in
reading what the book had to say than in making notesabout places where I
disagreed.  This doesn't mean I agree with everything,but there's only one
point I remember offhand considering really importantfrom this area.] No
specific pages attached:  To listen to Dr. Gordon, it would almost
appearthat there is no middle ground between interrogating a child and the
"activelistening" approach where parents don't try to lead a child's
thinking atall.  I would contend that it is quite possible to ask questions
that lead achild's thinking in a GENERAL direction without grilling the
child forspecific information.  I'm not saying that this is always better
than activelistening, since such questions may lead a child's thinking away
from a lineof thought that would eventually be even more productive, but I
do thinkthere are times when using this kind of question to give a child's
thinkinga nudge can be productive.  (This reflects a philosophical blind
spot in Dr.Gordon: he places such a high value on having children come up
with theirown solutions that he seems to seriously devalue the idea that
parents canactually offer useful advice at times.) p. 174.  When Dr. Gordon
tries to evaluate the usefulness of reward andpunishment in helping to shape
children's behavior, he uses analogies thatcompletely ignore the vastly
greater intelligence and communication skillsof all but the youngest
children.  As children's intelligence andcommunication skills develop, the
children can understand the behaviorsexpected, rewards promised, and
punishments threatened all through purelyverbal means without the need for
the kind of complex, involved conditioningprocess required with animals.
This factor creates a HUGE FUNDAMENTAL difference in the VERY NATURE ofusing
reward and punishment on children with sufficient communication
skillscompared with using such techniques on animals or pre-verbal children.
Withanimals and pre-verbal children, some amount of reward or punishment
isnecessary before the animal or child can even begin to understand
exactlywhat kind of behavior will be rewarded or punished.  In contrast,
oncechildren can understand language well enough, the understanding can
comeBEFORE any reward or punishment takes place, so it is a
CONSCIOUS,DELIBERATE choice to do right or wrong that is rewarded or
punished, notsomething done without any real understanding. Dr. Gordon does
raise a number of points about reward and punishment thatare very much worth
considering, but when he portrays children as if theywere nothing more than
animals, he ignores some very significantconsiderations. pp. 191.  Dr.
Gordon says, "My own conviction is that as more people beginto understand
power and authority more completely and accept its use asunethical, more
parents will apply those understandings to adult-childrelationships; will
begin to feel that it is just as immoral in thoserelationships; and then wil
l be forced to search for creative new nonpowermethods that all adults can
use with children and youth.  I take great issuewith Dr. Gordon's premise
here that the use of power and authority isINHERENTLY unethical. Indeed, I
would contend that barring a HUGE fundamental change in humannature, it will
be impossible to have a civilized society WITHOUT somedegree of power and
authority.  This is not to say that I think power andauthority are the
ideal; far from it, because I view cooperativerelationships as FAR superior
when and to the extent that they arepractical.  But when people refuse to
cooperate in a way that respects thelegitimate rights and interests of
others, at least some exercise of powerand authority becomes necessary.
That's why we have police and courts in the adult world, and it's whyparents
and teachers have power and authority over children.  It's best ifwe can
develop strong enough cooperation that such power and authority arenot
needed, but there is nothing inherently immoral in the reasonable use
ofpower and authority in situations where they are needed.

-----

Reminder: As noted in my introduction, although I have somesignificant
philosophical disagreements with Dr. Gordon, I
think_Parent_Effectiveness_Training_ does offer some extremely valuabletools
that all parents should be able to benefit from._____ p. 194ff.  The great
weakness of the concept of trying to find "no-lose"solutions is that there
is often no such thing.  Compromises often requireboth sides to give up at
least a little bit, which can pose huge problems ifthe two sides are not
willing to give enough for a compromise to bereachable. Before I go on, it
would help to explain some of Dr. Gordon's terminology. He refers to three
different methods parents can use to approach problems:Method I where the
parent wins and the child loses, Method II where thechild wins and the
parent loses, and Method III where (if Dr. Gordon'sideals are met) both the
parent's and the child's needs are met and no oneloses. Dr. Gordon makes a
huge point of insisting that his "Method III" of lookingfor "no-lose"
solutions is completely different from "Method II" where thechild wins and
the parent loses.  Yet if parents refuse ever to use powerand authority no
matter what, any situation in which the child is notwilling to compromise
enough to meet the parent's "needs" will inherentlydegenerate to the child's
winning and the parent's losing because either (1)the parents will have to
give in to make a compromise possible or (2) nocompromise will be reached
and the child will be able to do what he wantssince neither mutual agreement
nor parental power limits his behavior. The real key to making "Method III"
work in such situations lies in thechild's understanding that the parents
COULD resort to "Method I" if theyhave to.  Even some of Dr. Gordon's
examples almost admit as much, althoughI get the impression that Dr. Gordon
would be rather unwilling to admit sucha thing. (Most of Dr. Gordon's
reluctance to accept the idea that "Method I" can everbe a legitimate
back-up when no mutually acceptable solution is reachedstems from his very
correct recognition that if parents feel justified inresorting to the use of
power and authority when efforts to find acompromise fail, it may seriously
undermine their willingness to honestlypursue a solution that works well for
the child too.  I understand hisconcern, but I think responding to that
concern by going to the oppositeextreme of telling parents never to use
their authority no matter what isextremely dangerous.  It is entirely
possible for parents to work hard witha child to find solutions where the
child wins as much as is reasonablypractical and still refuse to make
compromises that they consider trulyunacceptable.) pp. 248-251.  In general,
I think Dr. Gordon is right that trusting childrento live by "Method III"
agreements is a far more positive approach thanbuilding punishments into the
agreements.  However, this works only as longas children are willing to make
an honest, legitimate effort to live by theagreements.  If children (or
parents for that matter) try to manipulate thesystem by making agreements
they will not keep, it destroys the value of theagreements and gives the
side that cheats a way to win at the other'sexpense. As Dr. Gordon notes,
some of the reasons children might break the agreements(and most of these
could also apply to adults) are legitimate.  Childrenmight forget, or they
might seriously underestimate the difficulty ofkeeping their side of an
agreement, or some such. But he seems to give very little attention to the
possibility of willful,deliberate violations of such agreements.  To the
extent that he considersthis type of violation at all, his sole remedy is
"I-messages" that let thechild know how hurt the parent is at the violation.
While this mightsometimes be enough, Dr. Gordon seems to offer no thoughts
at all about whatto do if it isn't. As long as children make an honest
effort to make only agreements they areprepared to live with and to live up
to those agreements, I think Dr. Gordonis right that it is better to steer
away from talk of punishment.  But ifagreements prove to be unreliable
without some sort of penalty built in,some sort of penalty provision may be
necessary.  (And this can go for theparents' side too: if parents are
permitted to break an agreement withimpunity whenever they please, why
should the children feel bound by it?) pp. 253-257.  In discussing parental
involvement in child-child conflicts,Dr. Gordon seems to completely ignore a
very important subset of child-childconflicts: those in which one child uses
some form of force or coercionagainst another.  Dr. Gordon cites the way
children resolve conflictswithout outside help when a parent isn't around as
the ideal, yet it isnowhere near unheard of for "solutions" reached when no
adult is watching tobe reached in ways where the stronger child wins and the
weaker child loses. There are some types of conflicts where it is entirely
proper for childrento reach compromises between themselves, but there are
others where adult"police" powers are truly needed. pp. 261-263.  Dr. Gordon
greatly exaggerates the impossibility of combiningdifferent methods of
parenting, even going so far as to say, "As it is notpossible 'to be a
little bit pregnant,' it is not possible to be a littlebit democratic in
parent-child conflicts."  This is patently ridiculous. Granted, if parents
switch from "Method III" to an extreme form of "MethodI" where they don't
even LISTEN to the child on important matters, it couldcause enormous
problems.  The idea that parents want to find solutions whereeveryone wins
to the greatest extent practical loses an enormous amount ofcredibility if
the parents aren't even willing to LISTEN. But there are other ways to mix
parenting styles besides using "Method III"part of the time and an extreme
form of "Method I" on other occasions.  Ahybrid method can be used in which
parents are willing to give the childrenevery chance to convince them to
change their minds, and in which theparents are also willing to bend around
the edges if possible as long as theissues they consider truly critical are
not compromised.  Such an approachdoes NOT completely abandon the principle
of WANTING to find solutions whereeveryone wins; it just recognizes that
there are some issues that parentsconsider too important to let themselves
lose. Another point Dr. Gordon misses is that the issues the parents
consider mostimportant are not always the same ones that a child considers
mostimportant.  Thus, even if children win very little on the issues
theirparents consider truly critical, they may well win a great deal on
otherissues THEY consider very important.  Such situations are in stark
contrastwith Dr. Gordon's picture of children feeling like they can win only
onunimportant issues, not on important ones. I think this area may be
another one where Dr. Gordon's disproportionateexperience with dysfunctional
families creates blind spots.  Too muchexposure to dysfunctional families
where parents misuse and overuseauthority, and too little to families that
use authority carefully andjudiciously, will inevitably make the use of
authority look far moreinherently dangerous than it really is. And just the
act of creating the categories "Method I" and "Method III" isitself very
likely to create blind spots.  If the two are thought of solelyas distinct
methods, how do you envision a method that incorporates elementsof both the
way I described earlier in this discussion?  How do you envisiona situation
where parents say, "This is what's so important that I'm willingto enforce
it if I have to, at least unless you can convince me that I'mwrong, but as
long as we don't violate this, we can look for ways to giveyou as much of
what you want as possible." p. 275.  While I agree with Dr. Gordon that
teaching and example are by farthe most important ways parents can shape
their children's values, I dothink he underestimates the potential good that
power and authority can dounder the right circumstances.  Specifically,
there are two key points thathe misses. First, if parents use their power
and authority relatively rarely, it sendsa message that anything they are
willing to use it with is something theyconsider especially important.  The
knowledge that parents considersomething important can easily cause
children, especially younger children,also to view it as more important than
they might otherwise.  This isespecially true if children have a fairly high
level of respect for theirparents' judgment. And second, the exercise of
power and authority can sometimes keep childrenfrom building habits around
"harmful" values until they have more maturity,knowledge, and wisdom through
which to decide whether those values arereally good or not.  This can be
helpful in preventing children from beingcaught in traps where changing back
to healthier values would force them tochange habits that are hard to break.
This is yet another area where I think Dr. Gordon's thinking was skewed
byoverexposure to unhealthy families.  Families where the use of power
andauthority to try to influence children's values results in disaster are
farmore likely to need a counselor than those where it works fairly well.
And by the way, the values children profess are not always the real
valuesthey consider true in their hearts.  Such "values" may just
berationalizations the children use to excuse behavior they know deeper
downis wrong.  Trying to use power and authority alone to reshape
deep-seatedvalues is almost always futile, but using them to help shake
children out ofrationalizations has a far greater chance of working. p.
277-282.  As I noted in the introduction, I'm more than a littleconcerned
about Dr. Gordon's willingness to simply write off problems as"owned by" the
child and thus at most only minimally the parents' business. By doing this,
Dr. Gordon essentially tries to impose "Method II" on parentswho care about
problems in those areas: the child wins and the parents lose. While this
tactic fits Dr. Gordon's ideal of never resorting to power orauthority quite
nicely, it does so by lowering the standards for "success"in parenting, not
by coming up with true substitutes that serve the samepurpose as well or
better.  Personally, I find such a lowering of standardsunacceptable; there
can be times when parents have to admit that using powerand authority to try
to deal with a problem is futile, but I think giving upwithout even trying
is going too far if something is really important. p. 289.  In speaking of
values and beliefs, Dr. Gordon seems to treat allforms of beliefs and values
as if they were nothing more than a matter ofblind faith or societal whim.
This is certainly true of some values andbeliefs, but many others have a
very strong basis in external reality. Still others are in between, with
rational arguments both for them andagainst them. Parents shouldn't let
blind prejudice push them to automatically reject itwhen their children make
different choices from what they are used to, butneither should parents
blindly accept every choice their children make as ifone choice could not
possibly be better or worse than another.  The better ajob parents do
exercising rational judgment in (and on) their own beliefsand values, the
better a position they are in to teach and guide theirchildren.

ARE YOU KIDDING??? Here is the quote again:

1) Talking to the child calmly
2) Sent the child to the room
3) Time-out
4) Removal of privileges

"was found to have a much stronger relation than any of the other
variables."

Straus, Murray A. & Vera E. Mouradian. 1998 "Impulsive Corporal Punishment by
Mothers and Antisocial Behavior and Impulsiveness of children." Behavioral
Sciences and the Law. 16: 353-374.

Now can you show me where in Straus & Mouradian (1998) did you find the
conclusion below?  My bet is that you will avoid this one just like you
avoid the debate on Power & Chapiesky (1982) you offered. :-)

Doan